The day at last came that the Commodore with 

 his pump on a dray made his appearance. It proved 

 to be a flapper piston, working in about a ){ section 

 of a cylinder; he called it his wing piston. This had 

 a valve on it with one below, as in the common lifting 

 pump. This flapper or piston, was worked by a 

 handle on the end of its axis, that came out of the 

 chamber through a stuffing-box; in fact, it was a 

 single acting section of the old Rowntree fire-engine. 

 The misfortune of the Commodore was the lack of 

 published records accessible to him, and no doubt the 

 invention was original with him. He could not have 

 known that he had been anticipated. 



The pump was put in the cistern, and the Com- 

 modore himself worked it, expatiating largely on the 

 volume of water delivered, the flapper being large in 

 proportion to the suction and ejection pipes, and the 

 lift of water not over four feet, consequently the pump 

 worked lightly. Perkins bustled around in his quick 

 way, often taking hold of the handle and working it, 

 repeating, "It works well, Commodore; it is a capital 

 thing." 



Had he stopped there the Commodore would have 

 gone away delighted, but Perkins, like some other 

 great men, always had a story ready for illustration 

 on every occasion, and was often his own hero. 



This time he could not keep it in; he began: "Plank, 

 good plank, a side 01 two of leather, plenty of spikes, 

 nails and rivets, and you always have at command 

 pumps, safety pumps. Why, once I was going from 



to on a heavily laden schooner, in a storm. 



She sprung a leak; the water gained on the pumps; 

 it was evident she could not float over an hour. 

 Water-logged as we were it would take several hours 

 to make the nearest port with favorable winds. I 

 took the matter in hand. All I had to work with 

 was a couple of planks 1% inches thick, 9 or 10 inches 

 wide, and one plank 12 inches wide, all over 9 or 10 

 feet long. I set the carpenter to ripping the 12-inch 

 plank into two. While he was doing this and spiking 

 them together into a 6-inch square spout and squaring 

 them to a length, I was making a bottom board to 

 nail on the lower end. I made a hole through its 

 center 3 inches square, put on it a leather flapper, 

 hinged wooden valve weighted with a bent bar of 

 lead nailed on it. I cut the blade off a sculling oar, 

 and to the lower end of its handle I nailed a conical 

 leather bucket, made out of a couple of boot tops. 

 The bucket was square, to keep it from crushing 

 down with the weight of the water. I had straps 

 from its top nailed to the oar handle through its 



upper end. I bored holes at right angles, drove 

 through them a couple of deck broom-handles so 

 that four men at a time could take hold. I cut a 

 square hole in the deck, sounded the depth of the 

 hole, nailed a strip on the side of my ex tempore pump 

 to rest on the bottom, secured the top with nails to 

 the deck, and caulked around it with oakum. There 

 was over 5 feet of water in my pump, so the bucket 

 was deep in it. Four men seized the handles and 

 lifted each lift about 2 feet; they averaged fully 50 

 lifts per minute, each lift spewing on the deck a col- 

 umn of water 6 inches square by 2 feet, which ran 

 off through the scupper holes. We rapidly gained 

 on the leak, and made port, saving the vessel and 

 cargo." 



While Perkins was telling this in his quick, enthusi- 

 astic manner, he became more and more excited, and 

 concluded by turning to Murray and saying: "I will 

 bet you an oyster supper for a dozen that I can my- 

 self make in less than half an hour a pump that will 

 with one man throw more water than that pump of 

 yours does." 



The Commodore very good humoredly said he 

 would take the bet, and insisted on an immediate 

 trial. Perkins went into the office, and in a few 

 minutes returned, coat off, and an old boot in his 

 hand, and said he was ready. (I presume he had 

 been looking up materials and placing them handy.) 



The company of lookers on, who by that time had 

 increased to a dozen or more, adjourned to the shop, 

 many with watch in hand. Perkins gave the signal 

 when ready to start. His first operation was with 

 his pocket knife, to cut a section of about 6 inches off 

 the top of the boot leg, then another of about 3 inches. 

 These he threw into a bucket of water, while his eye 

 wandered as if hunting materials; then rapidly turning 

 over some strips of inch boards standing in the coiner, 

 he selected four of them, two of them 3 inches wide, 

 no two of the same length. He was but a few minutes 

 nailing them into a 3-inch square spout, and sawing 

 off its ends square, closing the lower end with a block, 

 through which he bored a 2-inch hole. He doubled 

 the strip of leather for valve fan and hinge (wooden 

 valve), weighted it by boring a hole through it and 

 putting in a %-inch bolt that lay on the carpenter's 

 bench. Then to a sweeping-brush handle he crimped 

 in and wired his boot-leg section, roughly squaring its 

 upper end with hammer, tacked with copper tacks, 

 clinching their sustaining straps from the handle. 

 While this was doing the cock was open and the 

 cistern was filling with water. The pump was put 



18 



